Road to Bangladesh: Analysis of the major event that led up to the formation of Bangladesh. Interpreter of the Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri.

Essay by qmariposa1313College, UndergraduateA-, February 2006

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West Pakistan and East Pakistan were never meant to be together as one country. They only had one thing in common and that is their religion. First, they were a thousand miles apart with a huge country in between. Next, the people of Pakistan were ethnically different as well. West Pakistanis were usually taller and had lighter skin whereas East Pakistanis were shorter with darker skin. They did not even speak the same language: West Pakistanis spoke Urdu but East Pakistanis spoke Bengali. Nevertheless, they were lumped together as one country after Partition. As Lord Mountbatten prophesized, that within twenty-five years, these two regions would wage war against each other and finally split. In 1971, with the help of India, East Pakistan successfully seceded from Pakistan and formally became the country known today as Bangladesh.

Other than the major differences between the people of East and West Pakistan, all of the central power lay in West Pakistan.

As West Pakistan grew richer, East Pakistan grew poorer. All the foreign aid that Pakistan received from the United States after Partition for allying with them went to West Pakistan as did all of the profits that East Pakistan accumulated because of its natural resources. East Pakistan is a delta country which means that rice and jute grows very easily in this area. Yet, the raw resources that East Pakistan provided were usurped by West Pakistan. Clearly, West Pakistan was exploiting East Pakistan and East Pakistanis were treated as second class citizens by the government of West Pakistan.

Of course, the East Pakistanis could only take so much mistreatment and exploitation. In 1969, they politically mobilized their own party called the Awami League lead by Mujib-Ur Rahman. At this point in time, West Pakistan had a dictator named Yahyah Khan. He was...